


Terms of Surrender

by Cesarinna



Series: Bring The King to His Knees [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Aftercare, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety Attacks, Aphrodisiacs, Arguing, BDSM, Begging, Betrayal, Blindfolds, Blood and Injury, Bondage, Bondage and Discipline, Break Up, Breaking Up & Making Up, Caning, Corporal Punishment, Cunnilingus, Dom/sub, Dom/sub Undertones, Domestic Violence, Dominatrix, Domme, Drugged Sex, Dry Humping, Dry Orgasm, Dubious Consent, Dubious Ethics, Edgeplay, Emotional Hurt, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional Sex, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Eventual Fluff, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Femdom, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Frottage, Gags, Heavy Angst, Heavy BDSM, Humiliation, Hurt/Comfort, I just wanted to write a pretty boy crying in royal robes, Impact Play, Kneeling, Making Up, Masochism, Masturbation, Men Crying, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Mildly Dubious Consent, Minor Injuries, Mistress, Multiple Orgasms, One-Sided Relationship, Orgasm Control, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Orgasm Denial, Overstimulation, Painful Sex, Painplay, Panic Attacks, Pegging, Pet Names, Pining, Post-Break Up, Restraints, Riding Crops, Role Reversal, Rough Kissing, Rough Sex, Sadism, Self-Hatred, Sensory Deprivation, Separation Anxiety, Sexual Tension, Social Anxiety, Submission, Tears, They don't technically get divorced but they're definitely not married anymore, Touch-Starved, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, Violence, Whipping, Woman on Top, a year of the silent treatment lmao, strap in fellas this one's dark, thats it thats the only reason this is a thing, the king's completely whipped
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:01:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25061299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cesarinna/pseuds/Cesarinna
Summary: After her obedient little king betrays her and drives the realm into a devastating defeat, the queen resigns herself to being an absent ruler and an apathetic wife entirely out of spite. When he resorts to self-destruction to win her attention, she is torn between her inability to forgive and her unconditional love.-Meet the regretful king. The first installment of my new series (and my magnum opus), Bring The King to His Knees. This is honestly just an excuse to explore the power dynamics within royalty and role reversal. Porn is in Chapter 7, if that's what you're here for.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Series: Bring The King to His Knees [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1815106
Comments: 30
Kudos: 100





	1. The Empty Air Between Them

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to my magnum opus! I'm actually proud of this one. I purposefully kept this bitch vague (no named locations, only 3 named characters) for the sake of character depth and development, and I think it worked! Here's a little hint, pay attention to how Adrielle refers to Rhysian (the king, her husband, her boy, or Rhysian), that's how each scene is framed.  
> -  
> Massive thanks to [rxi19](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rxi19/pseuds/rxi19) for helping me with ideas and editing! <3 Go check her out, she's a phenomenal writer and an awesome friend.  
> -  
> Adrielle is pronounced aid-ree-elle. Rhysian is pronounced rice-ian. Gannon is literally just cannon with a G (he appears in chapter 2).

Adrielle felt the explosion rattling the steps beneath her feet before she heard it, which was odd for someone with ears as keen as her own. The palace—which she had considered nigh invulnerable—rumbled around her like a cornered beast. She scrambled to regain her footing on the stairs and hurried to the throne room on the first floor, the epicentre of the chaos. The attack had begun only a few minutes ago, but the halls already threatened to collapse upon her. Plaster and dust showered down around her, coating her in silt-fine debris.

She feared her heart would burst from her chest if it rattled against her ribcage any faster. Where had her husband gone? How the hell did this happen? Her war plans were damn near infallible, but the enemy army had just advanced into the city, into the palace itself! Impossible. _Impossible!_ She had spent months organising with her husband and the council to prevent this exact event.

Adrielle rounded a corner and skidded to an abrupt stop, almost toppling into a chasm in the corridor. Had she not caught herself in time, she would have been reduced to a mangled heap four stories below, spine shattered over the boulder that had cut through the palace walls as cleanly as a knife through a cake.

A guard latched onto her arm and tugged her away from the cavity in the floor. “Your Grace! Please, it isn’t safe here. The king won’t allow you to walk into the battle.”

Adrielle wrenched her arm from the woman’s grasp. “I will not be told what to do or where to go. The king is _not_ my superior. Where is he?”

A familiar hand clasped her shoulder from behind. “I’m right here, Adrie.”

She pivoted around and shoved her husband back. He swayed in his ornate armour, nearly collapsing before his guards caught him.

“What the hell is happening?” she demanded. “My strategy—”

“I abandoned it.” The king steadied himself, tugging at the collar of his armour to distract himself from her infuriated expression. “The council and I decided—”

“That was not your decision to make! We do not issue commands separately.” She pushed him again, with greater force this time. He clattered to the floor, falling on his back. “How did this happen? The council was in full agreement with me. I would have prevented all of this!”

He spoke quickly, eyes darting from corner to corner each time the palace shook with yet another explosion. “I ordered the council to lie to you!” he confessed, panicked. “I gave them instructions to mislead you while we fought the war on different fronts.”

A particularly violent explosion sent him to the floor as he made to stand. Adrielle slammed her shoe onto his breastplate and ground her foot into his chest. “Why? _Why_ would you lie to me? Why did you turn the council against me?”

The king flinched, forcing her leg away gently and allowing his guards to set him upright. “I haven’t time to explain! You—” He pointed to six of his guards. “—take her through the tunnels. Ensure that no one touches her and watch her until this is over.”

Adrielle thrashed against the guards as they seized her. “The war is lost, you bastard! The city will be reduced to dust if you refuse to surrender, do you understand me? Call for a peace meeting before the palace collapses and salvage what you can of the kingdom!”

“No, Adrie, I have no choice but to lead this battle,” he said in contrition. “This is my war, and these are my mistakes.” 

She scoffed. The king could barely defeat a training mannequin in combat. If he walked into the onslaught in the lower levels, the odds of his survival were tenuous. 

He nodded to his guards and gave her a desperate look. “I’m sorry it has come to this, my love.”

“To what?”

A guard closed a pair of manacles around Adrielle’s wrists so quickly that by the time she moved to resist, her hands had already been locked.

“I am your equal!” Adrielle exploded. “You will not shackle me like an animal.”

His soft, grey eyes flashed to hers, pleading that she cooperate. “No, Adrie. You are my superior. The realm needs you so urgently. Yours is the only life I cannot risk. If I leave your hands unbound, I know you will find a way to escape and hurt yourself in the name of our people.”

She bared her teeth like a snake preparing to strike. “You have no authority to do this.”

“Yes, Adrie, I do,” said the king. “You are my wife, my queen, and the protector of the realm, but you were born nothing more than the daughter of a regional lord.”

How _dare_ he?

How dare he use their bloodlines to silence her? How dare he subvert her and condemn the kingdom? How dare he restrain her, the only person who could mitigate the damage he had done? If her arms had been free, she would have flung him into the gorge in the floor. She would have skewered him on his own sword.

The king brushed the back of his knuckles over her browbone in a tender assertion of his love. She smacked him away with her bound hands. “Get out of my sight!”

“Yes, Adrie, as you wish.” He ventured to touch her again, cradling her cheeks in his palms. His face fell when she recoiled from him, her features twisted with revulsion. “I love you. I’m sorry that I must do this, but a king must confront his mistakes instead of surrendering to them.”

“Damn you,” she snarled. “ _Damn you_ for betraying your people. You will never find forgiveness for this. Not from the realm, and certainly not from me.”

He swallowed. “I know you are angry with me, my love. You have every right to be, but please… will you say a proper goodbye? I may not survive this.”

“I pray you do not,” she spat. Each word she spoke to him burned like venom on her tongue, as if she was a viper that had sunk its fangs into its own flesh.

He let out a shaky breath. “Surely you don’t wish death upon me, my love.”

“You wished it upon yourself when you ignored my counsel,” she said. “You have earned your death.”

The king straightened his spine and rolled his shoulders back in an effort to appear authoritative, but Adrielle was not one to be so easily fooled. “You will not involve yourself in this battle, Adrie. That is an order.”

 _An order_. He was not the one to issue orders in their marriage. That was the principle both of them had hewed to for years. He had crossed a boundary. No, he had barreled past the boundary so quickly that any suggestion of its existence had been swept away with the dust.

There would be no reversing this.

“I will not involve myself in _any_ battle from today forth.” Adrielle clenched her fists and tugged at the manacles. “You are alone in ruling the realm if you live through this battle.”

He creased his brows. “Adrie, you can’t do that.”

“I can.” She dug her nails into her palms to stop herself from slapping him into the chasm. “Now get out of my sight. Abandon me for your suicide campaign.”

“I love you,” he said again. “I love you, Adrielle, and I’m sorry.”

She refused to dignify him with a response, choosing instead to watch him leave with a cutting sort of detachment that frightened even her. His thin frame looked so unbearably weak in his stately armour. A heat she had never experienced before, a hatred she had not thought possible, stirred in her chest. She wanted to join the enemy and cut the bastard down herself.

The guards escorted her through the stone-lined tunnels that wound into and out of the palace. When Adrielle and the king had been children, they had spent hours upon hours exploring them, playacting as the rulers of their own clandestine kingdom. She knew these tunnels well, and she quickly predicted where he had ordered her to be brought. Years ago, the two of them had discovered a brick chamber deep beneath the palace. It served as a shelter for the ruling family if the worst came to worst, fully equipped as a royal suite.

The guards were gentle with her; respectful, almost apologetic. Her husband was the ruler of the realm in title and blood, yes, but she was the highest authority in practice. She had ensured it to be so, and all those who refused to defer to her were quickly struck down. The king was no better than a figurehead, enjoying the spoils of her rule without ever moving to incur them.

Each of the six guards produced a key when they reached the bunker door, slotting them into their respective locks. The heavy iron door swung open, its neglected hinges screeching in protest. Thirteen others sat inside—the thirteen advisors on the royal council.

Adrielle looked at each of them in turn. They twitched and fidgeted under her gaze, each of them determined not to attract the focus of her wrath. “You will give me your explanations, and if I am left with a modicum of lenity when you are finished, you will give me your resignations.” She caught an advisor's eye and trapped him with a petrifying glare. With her hands bound, she could not cow them with her physical strength. In order to countervail any sense of safety these traitors consoled themselves with, she had no choice but to draw fear using her rank. “Otherwise, I will call upon my executioners and demand the punishment of convention for treason.”

The thirteen traitors stumbled over one another to piece together their tangled story. A month ago, the king had decided to stray from Adrielle’s judgement. Instead of notifying her, he had elected to enlist the council to deceive her. It was a meticulous effort. Lying to the shrewd queen was difficult enough as it was, but that alone could not protect them from her suspicion. In order to preserve their conspiracy, they had presented her with forged reports and letters. During the past month, the council had controlled every scrap of information that entered the palace. Each firsthand account, each document, each rumour of the war—false, to create the illusion that her careful planning was steering them toward victory.

When her fury abated to the point that she could breathe again, Adrielle was overpowered instead by bewilderment. Why, _why_ had her husband organised such an elaborate scheme instead of opposing her outright?

The council continued, explaining the strategy the king had enacted in the stead of his wife’s. It had led the enemy through the realm and into the capital city with such ease that he seemed to have invited defeat. What had he been thinking? None of the advisors could answer that question. They had only been following his instructions without offering objections.

Adrielle clenched her jaw. What purpose did they serve as advisors if they supplied no advice?

She fought to keep pace with her own mind as it whirred through possible explanations as to why the king had squandered everything. Well, he had always been impressionable. Could it be that her voice was only one among dozens? Could it be that the vultures of the court had reshaped him during the lapses of her all-seeing gaze?

With relentless celerity, she interrogated the councilmembers. As useless as they were as advisors, the thirteen of them combined could answer any question concerning any noble house. She arrived quickly at a conclusion. The high lords had _wanted_ her husband to lose. They had manoeuvred the king into a defeat that would benefit their houses at the expense of the realm. The nobles had identified her approach as a straightforward path to peace, but it was not a peace from which they could profit. If they could not exploit the implacable queen, they would turn their attention to her puerile counterpart.

The noble lords had urged the king to make disastrous decisions and to hide them from Adrielle until it was too late. And her husband—her malleable, amenable, _asinine_ husband—had not realised their manipulation.

An extermination of the aristocracy suddenly struck her as appealing. She would have considered it had she not belonged to the noble class herself.

She sat against the wall, wondering if she would suffocate first on the humidity in the bunker or the force of her own anger.

The chamber was buried deep beneath the earth to a depth so great that everyone but Adrielle was spared from listening to the commotion above. She winced at each faint explosion, each testament to the destruction of her palace, her people. How many lives had been wasted by this stubborn, guileless king? How many corpses was she hiding beneath?

The battle endured long into the night. The stars had likely emerged hours ago. Finally, the world above calmed. When the victor of this war ripped apart the bunker door, would she be faced with her husband or her enemy?

She feared she no longer knew the difference between the two.

Her reflection glinted at her from a mirror in the corner. Her crimson lipstick was smeared across her chin, her precise eyeliner ruined. She wanted nothing more than to shatter the woman staring back at her, a woman she no longer recognised.

When she could no longer bear the night-black vitriol in her own eyes, she turned her face away.

Adrielle heard the footsteps nearing long before the others did. Her head snapped up and she surged to her feet. She recognised the pattern of her husband’s breathing anywhere, brick walls and metal doors be damned. From what she could hear, he was limping through the tunnel, accompanied by a scattering of others. Surviving guards and soldiers, she assumed.

A man pounded on the door. “Let us in! It’s the king!”

The guards turned their keys and inched open the heavy door. Her husband staggered in, scanning the room for Adrielle. His golden-blond hair was a tangled mess, stained by blood and soot. His armour had been reduced to scraps, revealing a myriad of wounds. He found her and lurched toward her, holding her with all the strength he could summon. He crushed her bound arms between her chests, smearing her with the filth that covered him.

He moaned in pain, frenzied with delirium. “Oh, Adrie. We lost. The enemy has occupied the palace. Gods, Adrie, I thought I wouldn’t see you again, and I—”

The king’s knees buckled beneath him and he crumbled. Adrielle ducked away from him as he began to vomit on his hands and knees. Sobbing as he retched violently, he sucked in strangled gasps as if he was spewing his lungs out on the stone floor.

All eyes flew to Adrielle, expecting that she pick up her battered husband and comfort him as she always had—but the love which had driven her to look after him had been trampled to cinders. From the moment he had shackled her wrists, he had forfeited all rights to her benevolence. She reached into herself to look for affection towards him, but found only plumes of smoke. 

“Gods, Adrie, you were right.” The king sat on his heels, holding his arms out to her with what strength he could summon. He grasped at the empty air between them, as if that would compel her toward him. “Adrie, my love, please… touch me?”

She thrust her hands toward him. “Unlock them.”

He pointed weakly at the guards. “One of them has the key.”

A guardsman bowed his head and slotted the key into her manacles, mumbling his apologies for having shackled her. Oh, he was only acting on orders, he knew that his queen was merciful. Oh, he asked that she show him mercy. She paid the man no mind as she pulled her arms free.

Adrielle closed her fingers around the manacles. “Get up.”

The king stood with the conviction of a newborn fawn. If Adrielle had seen him in this state yesterday, she would have rushed to care for him. She would have wiped the vomit from the corners of his mouth and brought him a glass of water. She would have peeled the tattered armor from his body and rinsed the dirt from his hair. She would have summoned the royal physician to treat and dress his wounds. She would have carried him to bed and sung him to sleep, if only to see him at peace.

Worst of all, she would have felt each of his injuries as if they were her own. She suffered no such empathy now.

Adrielle squeezed one manacle cuff in her dominant hand, wrought iron slipping over her right knuckles. She drew her fist back sharply and sent it flying into Rhysian’s jaw. He gasped, reeling away from her until his back collided into the wall. The others in the chambers bleated like terror-stricken sheep, hurrying to help him stay upright.

“Your Grace!” yelped an advisor. “The manacles, if you hit him with them—”

“It fucking hurts,” finished Adrielle. “Yes, that was my intention.”

The king stared at her with so much alarm, so much devastation, that her rent heart leapt with delight. He gingerly probed at where she struck him. Poking at his mouth, his fingers came back slick with blood from his split lip. “Wh-Why?”

“To remind you that the next time you shackle me, I will not stifle my strength.” She approached him, scattering everyone in her path as guards and advisors alike scrambled aside. No one could protect him from his queen, not even his sentinels. “If you _ever_ lock me in chains again, I will shatter your jaw.”

Adrielle clenched the iron cuff in her right hand and pinned his neck to the wall with her left. The king turned his face away, unable to meet her eyes. “Adrielle, please…”

She drew her lips back and bared her teeth. “What, Your Grace?”

“Please, just punish me. I’m sorry.” He kept his begging quiet, mortified at the thought of anyone hearing him invite discipline. “Do with me as you decide, so long as no one is watching. Send them away, and I am yours.”

“Is that an order?” She hissed the last word into his ear.

The king panted, fighting to recover his breath with her hand on his neck. “Adrie, I—” He broke into a bout of throat-tearing coughs. “I— I—”

She slammed her fist into his stomach and thrust him toward the floor. He curled up on the stone, clutching his belly and hiccoughing in pain. He had already been terribly wounded when he retreated to the bunker, searching for the comfort of his queen’s warmth. Now, he was twitching on the floor like a slain stag, having found anything but comfort in her. 

Adrielle bent down and grabbed a fistful of his golden hair, wrenching his face up by the scalp. “If you _ever_ presume to give me orders again, I will snap each of your ribs.”

The king nodded frantically when she released her grip. “Yes. Y-Yes, Adrie.”

“On your feet!” she barked.

He struggled to obey, having lost the strength to stand. Two guards rushed to support him, slinging his arms over their shoulders and hauling him upright.

Adrielle shifted the manacles to her left hand, striking the king across the cheek with enough force to bruise. Reactionary tears pooled in his eyes as he gasped. “My love, please! Please… enough.”

The guards clenched their hands around the pommels of their swords as their king cried out between their arms. She gave each of them a look, a challenge. No manner of servant nor subject would be so bold as to contest her.

“If you _ever_ lie to me again, I will not spare your beautiful face. I will disfigure if you keep the truth from me again, do you understand?” Adrielle dropped the manacles and stepped toward him, stopping when she was only a breath’s distance from him. Her lips brushed his earlobe and he shuddered. Too softly to be heard by anyone but him, she continued. “I should have you flogged for turning the council members to treason. I should have you flayed for damning the realm. I should have you tossed to the enemy as a peace offering, you pathetic cur. Your blood, King Rhysian, means nothing to no one.”

“My love, please, this is unlike you,” he appealed hoarsely, reasoning to a woman who no longer existed.

She moved back and steeled her face. “You have lost a war, Your Grace. You ought to be speaking with the enemy and making peace. To cower in hiding is unfitting of a king.”

“The peace conference is upstairs. Please, Adrie, come with me,” he begged. “Represent the realm. I need you.”

Adrielle motioned for the guards to escort him from the chamber. She sneered as he thrashed, the fissures in her heart sealed with contempt. “I promised that I would not involve myself in the affairs of _your_ kingdom again, Your Grace.”

“Adrielle!” roared the king. “Adrie, what has gotten into you?”

“Go, negotiate the terms of surrender alone.” Their eyes met, and she could no longer remember why she had ever adored him. “From today forth, Your Grace, you are on your own.”


	2. The Skin of a Dead Woman

Adrielle despised the man that her husband had become. Had he been a few years younger, he would still have been considered a boy-king. He had done nothing to shake that title in adulthood, to replace his childish disposition with courage and patience. She had once adored his callow nature, but it was terribly unbecoming of him now that she was no longer his sentinel. He seemed unable to grasp that he was no longer a prince—unable to realise the true weight of his responsibilities.

He clung to his ideals like a lamb to its mother, only to be disappointed time and time again. His was a bitter hope, and she wished that he would abandon it. She wished that _she_ would abandon _him_. It was a wonder that she had stayed until now. If she wished to leave, not even the king could stop her. Even if he ordered her to stay, she was not his to clumsily puppet around.

Adrielle had learned to live alongside her husband—live, and nothing more. She knew he needed her now more than ever, but she could not bring herself to care. Or, rather, she had persuaded herself to disregard his quiet heartache, disregard his presence as a whole. When any part of her cried out to help him, she overpowered it quickly. That part of her had died at his hand. The king was undeserving of her forgiveness, and to offer him affection was out of the question.

The palace had become a glorified stockade to her, nothing more than an enclosure in which Adrielle could not escape him. She had resumed her travels soon after the repairs on their home began, using the tumult as an excuse to disappear to another corner of the realm.

Following the deaths of the king’s parents, Adrielle had assumed preeminence in order to protect him from the demands of his own crown. She had deserted the throne a year ago, in turn reclaiming her right to travel as she pleased. It was always revitalising to be away from her husband, to hide her face and wander the realm as an ordinary woman. She often spent weeks away from the capital, returning for no longer than a month each time.

He had begged to join her in the beginning, only to be met by denial and denial again. Of course, Adrielle could hardly travel on her own. After the final battle, an old confidante of hers had returned to the city. Gannon was among her oldest, dearest friends. The king had been close to him as well, until he sent him away to serve in the army in a fit of jealous rage. She had insisted that he accompany her each time she left the palace, and he had agreed to her charge. He was in no position to refuse her, although she was certain that he would have obeyed regardless.

It was gratifying to see the king’s face contort in jealousy each time his wife and her friend rode off together, assuming things between them that could never be.

Adrielle was restless, as she was most nights in this disconsolate palace. She numbered the minutes until her next departure with the captain. Five days seemed excessively long—especially considering she had already spent a week here—but Gannon had business to attend to in the city, which she had agreed not to rush. He was planning his wedding and visiting his fiancee’s family.

The midsummer humidity coupled with the king’s incessant pacing from the neighbouring bedchamber threatened to drive her mad. Adrielle threw her blankets aside and swung her legs over the side of the bed, stepping onto the cold marble tile. Following the final battle, the wooden floors of the royal chambers had been replaced with stone. She could still hear the lightest footsteps on the firmest of floors, but in any event, stone did not creak, which was a relief to her as it was to the king.

Adrielle’s ears had always been keener than his, but she doubted he would hear her enter even if she stomped from her bedroom to his. He was too absentminded to pay much mind to his surroundings, too prone to distractions and interruptions to care. It was a wonder that he had not been assassinated years ago.

The guards paired on either side of his door barely acknowledged her outside of cursory bows. She slipped in silently, eyes adjusting to the moonlight filtering through the windows. He always refused to draw the curtains closed, an annoyance which she had abided when they slept in the same room. Now that they lived separately, she was free to enjoy the darkness she preferred.

The king’s back was turned to her as he made laps around his room, maundering feverishly to himself. She had always found the bedchambers in this palace to be absurdly large. This room was the size of the courtyard in her summer home. From the point at which she stood, he was only a small silhouette in comparison to his towering window.

He stopped and collapsed against the glass, sitting with his back to the window, knees drawn to his chest. He buried his face in his hands, tearing at his golden hair and hiccuping through quiet sobs. Hiding his weeping was a skill he had attempted to fine-tune over the course of a year, but it did not spare Adrielle the discomfort of hearing him sniffle through the wall.

Without his stately robes or his imposing armour to hide beneath, he looked unbearably frail. Remnants of a woman long dead urged her to comfort him. She stifled those instincts.

The king stood again, too distressed to sit and cry for longer than a minute. Adrielle had known this man since he was five. She was as familiar with him as the moon was with the stars. The pacing and the insomnia were symptoms of a larger issue. She knew something was plaguing him, but she did not care to know what.

He rounded a corner. If he had bothered to light a candle or even to look up from the ground, he would have seen her long ago. She cleared her throat as he drew near.

“Adrie?” Despite a year of coldness on her part, he was still delighted to see her like a dog would its master. In the dim moonlight, his smile was strikingly beautiful. _Sickeningly_ beautiful, even through his tears. It was unfair to her, unfair to those who looked upon his elegant face with contempt, only to be charmed into forgiving him. “It’s so late, Adrie. What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be awake, my love.”

 _My love_. She could never break him from the habit of calling her that, and it irritated her to no end.

“I have been listening to your pacing for hours, Your Grace,” she said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know you could hear me.” The king’s smile fell as she made to leave. “Wait, please.”

Adrielle paused, but she refused to turn and face him. “Is that an order, Your Grace?”

He sucked in a breath, his hurt apparent. “No. Of course not, Adrie. I am _asking_ that you stay, humbly. You are leaving soon, aren’t you? I won’t see you for weeks when you do.”

She felt a pang of guilt. The surest way to wound him was to ask if a simple request was an order. Yes, she sought to distance herself from him, but ridiculing him would only serve to upset them both.

The king’s eyes were bloodshot and offset with deep bags, dark enough to be mistaken for bruises. His cheeks were puffy, glossed with tears. When had he last eaten? The healthy fullness of his face had melted to expose the hollows of his cheeks. Adrielle had never seen him in such a pitiful state. Then again, she saw him very rarely.

Steadying her heart, she said, “Okay, I’ll stay.” She could allow him this, but only this. Otherwise, she would be giving him undue hope, and a hopeful king was a demanding king.

He sat at his desk, scrubbing at his face with the hem of his sleeve. He gave her a hesitant grin, and her throat tightened. “Until morning?”

From the day they met, she had found it difficult to deny him. The crown prince had not used threats as the other children had, but his saccharine smile. She had loved him to the point of giving him anything he asked for, if only to draw that smile out of him again. Now, after so long despising him, she realised how terribly she missed it.

“I might as well. It will not be long until daybreak.” She settled in the armchair against the far wall. His tired eyes followed her from one side of his monstrously large room to the other.

“Please, come back here.” He was careful to make his words as unassuming as possible. The king was humbling himself before her. A year ago, she would have been pleased, but his pandering was nothing but bothersome to her now. “If you want to sleep, the bed is more comfortable. Please.”

Adrielle watched him play with a paperweight on his desk, quietly worried that he would drop it. He rolled the small glass globe between his trembling hands, attention fixed on the swirls of green and grey within it to keep himself from staring at her. She had come across it during a jaunt through a distant empire and thought of him immediately, so she had bought the colourful little bauble and traipsed across the world with it. A souvenir for her boy, a promise to give him the world.

There remained not one promise unbroken between them. Even his precious paperweight was chipped.

“Adrie,” he said as she went to sit on his bed. “I owe you an apology for last week.”

Last week. It had been a small interaction. A year ago, it would not have shaken him to this degree. They would have stormed away from one another like quarrelling children, only to return to each other before the end of the day. Now, they spoke so rarely that a single breath of disappointment from her amounted to a verbal bombardment to him.

Almost immediately upon her return, he had entered her chambers without her permission, asking her how best to go about welcoming a foreign lord. Both of them knew perfectly well that he was only looking for an excuse to speak to her, but she had been terribly impatient that day, having just returned from seven weeks of travel. Before he could so much as finish his question, she had ordered him to leave. She had watched as his shoulders had fallen, as his mouth had twitched into a grimace, and she had done nothing other than command that he shut the door behind him.

Adrielle had once managed the affairs of the kingdom for her husband until she was the king herself, but she had long since resiled from any effort to rule. She had no more energy to waste on wrangling the court and council if her labours were lauded with lies and subterfuge. If he wanted his queen as a wordless figurehead, then he would have her as such. She had stepped aside and allowed him to disregard her decade of expertise—expertise she had sought out purely to aid him.

He had spent the last year atoning for flouting her careful planning, but she had refused to listen to him. It was nothing that deserved to be heard.

“I know you don’t appreciate being disturbed by me,” he continued. “I apologise.”

She pinned him with a frigid stare. “Be quiet.”

“Yes, Adrie.” The king said it like a title. Yes, _Adrie_ —as if her existence alone was something worthy of esteem to him. He had once explained that he used her name often because it felt natural on his tongue.

A sheen of tears formed over his eyes. He squeezed the glass globe until his knuckles paled. If it had been hollow, it would have exploded in his grip long ago.

Once, Adrielle had been sympathetic to his sensitivity, but she could no longer be asked to care. She would have once swallowed her annoyance and let him talk in order to avoid wounding her delicate, delicate little king. Maybe she would have even listened to whatever drivel was spewing from his mouth. 

If only he would stop loving her, as she had stopped loving him. As furious as she was, she was not entirely without a heart. Seeing him in this state was difficult for her. In the beginning, she had taken a sadistic delight in his misery, but that glee had faded within weeks, leaving nothing but a hollow chasm in her chest that neither love nor hatred could seal.

“Adrie…” he began uneasily. “I have something to say.”

She groaned and lay down on the king’s bed, holding a pillow over her face. It had been so long since she had slept here with him. She took in a lungful of his scent, which had become unfamiliar to her. Cedarwood and sage. Her throat constricted and she let out an unsteady breath. She had not expected to be this upset over him.

“What’s wrong?” asked the king.

“Nothing!” Adrielle growled. Even with her eyes shut against the pillow, she could see him flinch at the tone of her voice. “Just say your piece so that we may be done with this.”

“I want to talk about what happened during the—” The king paused when his voice broke, taking a breath to steady himself. “During the war.”

He had attempted to address this topic on half a dozen occasions, but she had always left before he could say anything. Adrielle squeezed the pillow to keep herself from striding out of the king’s chambers. She would allow him to speak on this subject tonight. After all, they could not avoid this forever.

“I’ve learned my lesson.” He spoke quickly, as if he expected her to stop him. “I promise I have, Adrie. I know better now. I was wrong to question you. You— You can stop now. Please, stop…”

“You did not _question_ me,” she hissed. “You dismissed my counsel entirely. You told our advisors to lie to me, so I would be fooled into thinking you had carried out my plans.”

She knew from the tremble of his voice alone that the king was resisting tears. “I know. I was making a disaster of the war, and your approach would have reversed my mistakes long enough to secure a victory. I was stupid not to listen to you. You outsmart and overpower me ten times over, I have always known that.”

“Then why did you ignore me?” she demanded.

“Because you have always taken care of me!” His voice swelled suddenly with distress. “Even when we were children, you protected me. When I became king, you assumed all of my responsibilities. It wasn’t an issue in the beginning, but the court began to mock me when the war started. They asked me to prove I could do anything without you, and— and—”

“And could you?” Without waiting for an answer, Adrielle continued. “You realised that everyone knew I was the true force behind the throne, and you wanted to prove that no one had influence over you, is that it? You are a coward and a child.”

“Yes, Adrie. I’m sorry,” he whined. “I’m sorry I’m not a better man and a better king. The realm is crumbling. Please, if you won’t be my wife, be my queen. I need you. I need your help. I can’t do this for much longer. My control is slipping. I don’t know how to lead, or— or how to win wars, or how to command the nobility. I can’t do it.”

“Yes, you can,” she snapped, her impatience taking the form of a rare gesture of approval. “The realm is surviving. More than a little remarkable, considering these circumstances.”

“I don’t want my people to survive! I want them to prosper, and I can’t— I can’t do it! I don’t have your mind or your skillset, only my lineage, and the glory of my parents will only protect me for so long.”

Pathetic. The king was _pathetic_ , but she felt just as pitiful. Her tears soaked into the silk pillowcase, slipping from her iron control for the first time in months. She had not considered how relieving it would be to finally understand why he had betrayed her, betrayed the realm as a whole. He had condemned himself to prove his independence to noble lords who would be nothing without him. The irony of it all infuriated her, but to hear it as an admission was liberating in ways she had not expected.

“I was delighted, once, to be the queen, and to be your wife,” she said. “I regret becoming either. You will receive no counsel from me, Your Grace.”

He had the audacity to whimper like an ill-treated pet. “Then why haven’t you left?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. Maybe she stayed for the sake of her family, a clan of minor lords who gleaned the new advantages of her title. Maybe she stayed for the sake of her pride. Maybe she stayed because she was too apathetic to do otherwise.

Or maybe, she stayed because—

“Do you still love me, Adrie?”

—of _that_.

“Are you truly unable to answer that question on your own?” she snapped, defences leaping to protect her. “Of course not.”

Something shattered on the marble floor. The king yelped in horror.

Adrielle tossed the pillow aside and sat up. Her husband was kneeling, staring first at the broken paperweight, and then at her. He could only bear the weight of her gaze for a moment before he looked at the paperweight again, desolation spreading across his features. He was silent for a second, and she said a silent prayer, pleading to the gods that he keep his composure.

Tears pooled at the corners of his eyes, and sobs were quick to follow. He began to sweep up shards of the glass globe with his bare hands, blood beading on his palms and dripping to the floor alongside pieces that slipped out of his hands.

He cradled them to his chest and wept like a child. The glass dug deeper into his skin as he clenched his hands around the pieces.

She watched in a quiet stupor, unsure of what to do. _Comfort him_ , whispered the part of herself that she shunned. There was not a single justification to ignore it this time, as loathe as Adrielle was to admit it.

This was her own fault. She had been careless, and now she had created another complication to address. She knew perfectly well just how fragile the king had become. She should have predicted that he might drop his precious paperweight if she told him she no longer loved him. She should have evaded his question.

“Rhysian…” she said gently, approaching him with the same tenderness with which she would approach a wounded animal. The king’s name was crude on her tongue, so rough with disuse that she had nigh forgotten it. His eyes flashed briefly to hers, tears slipping down his cheeks. She had once found his helplessness endearing, a thought which was ridiculous to her now.

“I… I’m so sorry.” His voice was strangled as if the weight of what he had done was crushing his windpipe.

“Rhysian,” she repeated. “Let go of the glass, you’re hurting yourself.”

Panic appeared in his expression, and his demeanour changed entirely. “It was an accident! I didn’t mean to—”

She closed her fingers around his wrists. “Enough. Let go of it before you damage your hands. It was only a paperweight.”

“No, it wasn’t!” Finally, he unclenched his fists and let the blood-slick glass clatter back to the floor, hiding his face in his palms and smearing his cheeks red. “It was a gift from you. A gift from _you_.”

“I will buy you another glass globe,” promised Adrielle. “We are able to afford thousands, if you want that many. Stop crying.”

Soon after she became queen, she instructed all staff in the palace to enter the royal quarters only if given explicit permission. She had grown frustrated of frantic interruptions each time a handmaiden heard a “howl of pain” come from their bedchambers, only to find him tied to the bed in what was decidedly _not_ pain.

The king wept with force, and she feared the pair of guards would abandon their posts at the door and come to his rescue. Then, she would be forced to explain why a grown man was crying over a paperweight and bleeding from a dozen cuts. What would she say to them? Oh, he was distressed, but there was no cause for concern. The ruler of the realm was susceptible to meltdowns unless he was looked after like a child! Ridiculous.

“I— I don’t take care of your gifts!” he sobbed. “I can’t be trusted. I can’t be trusted with anything!”

Adrielle said another silent prayer, asking that the gods do her a great kindness and smite her where she sat. Her husband had lost his mind, and she feared she would be soon to follow.

She cupped his blood-stained cheeks. “You do take care of my gifts. I know you polished that damned paperweight every night for the past five years. Enough of this, Rhys. You are the king, and no king of this realm cries over a pile of glass, do you understand?”

If saying his full name felt foreign to her, his nickname was absolutely alien. He stared at her—heaving for breath, trembling with grief—before pitching himself into her chest and encircling her with his arms. His right knee ground into the shards between them, and she winced at the screech of glass against marble. His bloody fingers dirtied her nightgown, but she did not fling him aside as she would have under any other circumstances. He muttered unintelligible apologies into the crook of her neck as she coaxed him to stand.

“Breathe, Rhysian.” She slid her arms around him and began to rub circles between his shoulder blades. “Breathe. There, good boy.”

He swallowed, shoulders shuddering through smothered sobs. _Good boy_ —his favourite words of praise, which he had not heard in a year. She had to withhold any indication of approval for so long, and now she was breaking her promise to herself. Adrielle was treading on the hallowed ground of her resolution with soot-stained boots, and try as she might, she could not smooth over the hollows her feet left behind.

“The earth will continue to turn with or without your paperweight.” She held him closer, clutching him to her chest as she had a thousand times before.

“It wasn’t only a paperweight,” he protested weakly.

She sighed. “Yes, I know it mattered to you, but you are a king. You cannot cry over something as small as a bauble.”

He sniffed, nudging his nose into his shoulder. “But…”

On instinct alone, she reached up to stroke his hair, ignoring the accusations of hypocrisy levied upon her by her own mind. She had been careless. She had let herself slip into the skin of a dead woman, a woman who once comforted her darling boy at whatever cost. That withered skin tightened around her to the point that she could not simply slither out of it.

“You are no child, Your Grace. You must act on reason instead of emotion. Tell me, was that outburst reasonable to you?” 

“N-No,” he answered.

“That’s exactly right, Rhysian.” She kept her voice soft and her touch gentle. “Exactly right. Good boy. It was only a toy, and this was only an accident. Hardly anything to be so distressed over. You cannot behave like a child anymore, Your Grace. As young as you may be, you are the king.”

He whimpered. “I’m sorry.”

Adrielle slipped out of his grasp. “There is nothing to apologise for. Now, show me your hands.” The king held out his palms for her. She squinted in the faint light, hissing at the sight of his cuts. “I ought to take you to the doctor.”

“No, no. Please, that isn’t necessary,” he insisted. “It’s the middle of the night. She’s asleep.”

“She will wake to serve her king as she is duty-bound to do. Come, let’s pay her a visit,” she ordered.

Like a faithful hound, he tailed her out of his bedchambers. The guards peered curiously at the two of them, but Adrielle graced them with no explanations. They followed at a respectful distance as she marched the king to the infirmary. She wove through the clutter and the cots and knocked on the doctor’s bedroom door, past the point of caring that she would wake the sleeping patients.

The doctor peeked out of her room, half awake at best. Her eyes flew open when they fixed upon the queen. “Your Grace, has something happened?”

“No,” the king hurried to say before Adrielle could answer. “Nothing severe enough to require your services.”

The doctor frowned. “I trust your judgement, my king, but—”

“But you will treat his wounds immediately,” said Adrielle. “This is not his decision.”

“Yes, my queen,” said the doctor. “My apologies.”

After the war had been lost, Adrielle had stopped issuing commands. Simply to prove a point, she had allowed the kingdom to fall further into disorder as her husband attempted to restore it to the glory of his parents’ age. Still, the servants of the palace and the subjects of the realm remembered where the power of the crown truly rested. She was the authority to be obeyed above all others, the king himself included among them.

After the initial humiliation of the final battle, the king had fumbled and struggled without her. He had learned to substitute her acumen with his determination, her strategy with his spirit, which produced varying results. Though he was no great king, or even a good king, he was _a_ king. The realm was functioning, but what respect he had cultivated had stemmed largely from his parents. Compared to them, he was a pitiful excuse for a son of their bloodline—and when compared to Adrielle, he was the poorer choice for the sovereign. She would be met with resistance if she attempted to seize the throne, but his supporters could only pose a threat to her for so long. If she decided to usurp him, she very much had the means to do so.

The realm was not her birthright, nor was it her ambition, but, if she claimed her husband’s crown, it would effortlessly be hers. She suspected he would willingly cede his lands and titles in exchange for her forgiveness.

Adrielle waited outside the doctor’s bedroom while she treated the king. He emerged with his hands and his right knee dressed in gauze, his face wiped of blood. He reached out to her, and instead of swatting him away as she normally would, she allowed him to wrap his bandaged fingers around her own. He squeezed her hand and winced, seeming to have momentarily forgotten his own wounds.

She returned the king to his bedchambers, but he refused to loosen his hold on her. “You said you would stay until morning.”

Ah. She _did_ say that, though she was beginning to regret it. “Fair enough, but there is only one bed. Do you sincerely expect that I sleep beside you, Your Grace?”

He pulled her further into the room. “No, my love. I can sit at my desk while you sleep.”

Adrielle shook her head. “You are spent, Your Grace. Look at yourself, you are about to collapse.” She drew back his untouched sheets and sat him on his bed. “How long has it been since you’ve slept? How many days?”

“Three,” he answered.

“And when did you last eat?”

“Yesterday.”

Adrielle pursed her lips, willing herself not to care. She nudged his shoulder until he lay down and drew the blankets over him. “You are such a helpless child, Your Grace. Must you force me to mother you? The court will notice your poor health.”

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled as she tucked the sheets in around him.

“I know you are. You always are.”

He looked up at her through strands of his honey-blond hair. “Am I forgiven?”

“There is nothing to forgive,” she said. “Your body doesn’t belong to me. You aren’t damaging anything that is mine.”

He glowered like the bratty prince she had fallen in love with all those years ago. “That isn’t what I meant.”

Adrielle blinked in disbelief. She had long stopped going to lengths to preserve his happiness. Surely he knew she would not lie to spare his feelings. Did he _want_ to be reminded of his betrayal? Did he _want_ to be spurned?

“No, you are not forgiven.” She kept her face empty of expression, knowing she had been too soft with him tonight. He would likely cling to her like a leech in the morning, and she feared that she would not have the strength to shake him off. “Not until the realm is restored to the glory that it used to know.”

“But I don’t know how to do it without you. I need you,” he pleaded. “Please, I know you are angry with me, but think about our kingdom—”

“ _Your_ kingdom,” she corrected. “I am ‘nothing more than the daughter of a regional lord.’”

The king flinched at his own words. “Adrie…”

“Yes, yes, I know. You regret saying that, I am your wife and your queen, and you need me,” she said. “No need to keep repeating yourself, Your Grace.”

Adrielle eased another pillow under his head before turning to his desk. For the most part, he kept all of his work in his study, using this one as a shelf for his little trinkets. She sighed, glancing at the colourful glass glimmering on the floor. The globe had been quite beautiful, although the loss of that beauty wasn’t what had upset the king so deeply. On his seventh birthday, she had given him a monstrous toad that she had come across in the royal gardens. When it inevitably hopped away, he had responded with the same grief, for no other reason than that because the hideous thing had been a gift from her.

She carefully gathered the glass into a small towel from his washroom before folding it and dropping the bundle near the door, where the maids would see it and dispose of it come daybreak. Again, she had found herself caring for the man she had so convinced herself she loathed. She could not decide whether she was angry with herself or simply disappointed.

“Adrie…” The king’s eyes slipped shut. “I was being selfish. You don’t have to stay until morning, but could you wait until I’ve fallen asleep? Please.”

“Fair enough,” she agreed. “Until you’ve fallen asleep.”

Adrielle sat at his desk chair, watching his haggard frame as he breathed steadily, softly. He looked almost at peace, which pleased the part of her that had never stopped loving him. Maybe she was wrong to be so furious with him, to scorn him so harshly as to withhold her affection for so long. Maybe she was wrong to punish her people by leaving them in the hands of a boy disguised as a king.

“One more thing,” he added quietly. “My body does belong to you.”

“Excuse me?”

“My body,” he murmured, barely awake. “You said I wasn’t damaging something that belongs to you. That isn’t true.”

She chuckled, laughing in his company for the first time since the war. “Goodnight, Rhysian.”

He hummed something under his breath, something which sounded suspiciously similar to _I love you_. “Goodnight, Adrie.”


	3. Let It Be Mercy

Adrielle shut herself away for five days after the paperweight incident in a pointed refusal to acknowledge the king while she waited for the captain to return. She had made a habit of reminding herself that she was very much justified in her coldness. She replaced her hesitation with the familiar pulse of anger until she again felt nothing but contempt towards him. The withered skin of the dead woman who loved him shredded to reveal her own underneath, pulsing with life, resentment, and above all, _reason_.

Even those of the most resolute character encountered uncertainty, she had told herself. She had simply experienced a moment of weakness. So long as she continued to keep her distance, nothing would have to change.

“Come in,” she said, before the king had even closed his hand around her doorknob. “What have you come to disturb me with, Your Grace?”

“The captain. He’s here.” The disgust in his voice was apparent. Adrielle could almost imagine his tongue snagging on his teeth. 

She rose, slipping a bookmark into her novel and tucking it beneath her arm. “Is he? I cannot remember how many times I have told him to knock on my door instead of waiting in the courtyard.”

His lips twitched. Under any other circumstance, had they been discussing any other person, he would have been the perfect model of obedience. Unfortunately for the both of them, the captain coaxed out crudely-concealed jealousy in him, and even the fear of displeasing his wife and queen could not contain it.

The king clenched his jaw and widened his stance in her doorway. “The captain waits because it is deferential that he does so.”

“Your Grace, when I was a mere daughter of a regional lord, was it not deferential that I wait as well?” Adrielle ran her tongue over her teeth, resisting a smirk. “And yet, you never onced ask me to so much as knock before entering your chambers.”

“That was different,” he said.

“Because I was sleeping with you, Your Grace?” She fought to keep herself from laughing aloud as the king blushed furiously. He was such an easy man to torment. “How different can it be, then, if you suspect me of doing the same with Gannon?”

His mouth fell open. “I— I never— That is _not_ true! When have I ever said that?”

“Oh, please,” she snorted. “You have oathed him ever since you were old enough to recognise a threat. You destroyed your friendship with him over a farce of an argument. I see the way you look at him.”

The king’s voice was fraught with accusation, his face furrowed with disgust. “Well, I see the way _he_ looks at _you_.”

“Oh?” She raised a brow, extending a silent challenge to him. “How does he look at me, Your Grace?”

“You know how. He ought to learn his place.” He refused to say anything more.

“He is my dear friend,” she said. “His place is wherever I decide it will be.”

“Dear friend,” he growled. “Is he only a _dear friend_ to you?”

Adrielle moved to pass him, but he stood steadfast in front of her door. She had not expected so much resistance from him. Each time she had left in the past had been met with minimal objection on his part. Where had he found this newfangled boldness? Maybe she had been too careless five days ago, too sympathetic to his grief over a fucking _paperweight_. She cursed herself for being so affectionate with him, cursed the dead woman and her suffocating skin, compelling her to hold him.

“Move. I will not not keep the captain waiting.”

“Answer me, Adrie.” He reached for her hand, but she tugged herself away. “Please?”

“Yes!” she barked, forcing enough venom in her voice to shatter his resolve. He ducked his head, suddenly unable to look at her. “Yes, he is nothing more than my friend, godsdamnit! He may be my only friend left, considering that half of them died in the war and the other half fled because of your incompotence. And he is fucking _engaged_ , you insufferable bastard.”

He flinched violently. She rarely cursed at him, and rarer still did she insult him outright. She preferred to ignore him and patronise him with courteousness when they were forced to interact.

“No one told me he was engaged,” he said. Defeat krept into his voice—in the subtle droop of his shoulders and the glint in his eyes. Yet, still, he was unwilling to move.

“You decided to force him into the army because you were jealous of him. You are entitled to none and nothing of his life.” She checked her wristwatch, a gift from Gannon. Nearly noon. “We have already fallen behind schedule.”

“Where are you going?” he asked quietly. “Where must you be that is more important than the palace? Why are you so insistent on leaving so often? You are the queen, Adrie.”

“I am a trophy,” she corrected. “I am no more needed here than a common cur plucked from the streets is.”

“Gods, no. You have never been a trophy.” He held his arms toward her hesitantly, as if he was considering if he should embrace her. Her lips curled in disgust at the thought.

“Clearly I am not. If you refuse to allow me passage out of my own bedchambers, you have made me a prisoner.”

“You are not a prisoner, nor are you a trophy! Those are absurd ideas.” The king drew in a long breath, exhaling slowly to calm himself before continuing. “Stay, please. I need your help. The summer solstice festival is in three weeks. I’ve never organised it alone before. Last year’s celebration was cancelled because of the war, but I have no such excuse now.”

She made a dismissive gesture. “I managed it alone for many years. I have faith that you will be able to ask well.”

“But imagine what the guests would think if you were absent!”

“I imagine it will be what they always think. I have not been at your side at a single formal gathering in quite some time, not have I made a public appearance. Rumors are certainly widespread by now. If your reputation is what concerns you, it is far too late to salvage it by parading me in front of a crowd.”

Adrielle tried again to pass him, but he was still as a cenotaph in the city square. Briefly, she considered if she could strangle him with the ribbon in her book. She had never much liked those gaudy things, preferring instead to use proper metal bookmarks. Between the king and the ribbon, she would be damaging nothing she considered valuable.

 _Tread carefully,_ a part of her warned. If she allowed her patience to slip now, her composure would slip as well. That was something she couldn’t possibly afford.

Forcing herself to maintain something resembling impassivity, she took a softer approach. “You cannot keep me here, I know you are smart enough to understand that. Be a good boy and move.”

He blinked. “I…”

Adrielle had never used praise as a weapon before, but now that she realised how effective it was, she wondered why she had not sooner tested this method. Taking advantage of his surprise, she ducked under his arm and escaped into the corridor, setting off towards the courtyard.

The king leapt back to attention. He seized her by the elbow and wrested her backward, sending her book thudding to the floor. “Wait!”

She wrenched out of his grasp, abhorred that he would so much as brush against her without her permission. “The next time you touch me, I will—” She paused, forcing herself to bite back an explosive threat. “I will not be forgiving.”

His apologies were immediate, as if he himself had not expected that he would overstep his bounds so severely. Before she could bend down to retrieve her book, he fell to his knees, holding it up to her as an offering. He looked like a knight presenting the head of a bear to the kings of olde, which only irritated her further. He was far from righteous and further still from honorable.

Snatching it out of his hands, Adrielle continued walking. He rushed to his feet to follow her, calling out to her turned back. “Please, don’t go.”

“And if I do?”

His gait was unsteady as he hounded her, his face pale and dejected. “I— I don’t know. Please, stay.”

“Is that an order?” Five nights ago, she had felt awful for mocking him in this way. Then again, she had not been Adrielle, but a dead woman who loved a traitor. This was a victory to her now, an assertion of her command over her own heart.

“No!” he cried out. “I am not ordering you, Adrie, I am _begging_ you, please don’t leave for another month. I hate waiting for you. I’m happier when you are home, even if you avoid me.”

How typical of the king to think that his happiness was the only thing that mattered to her. That had been true for the majority of his life, but he had tossed away that luxury a year ago. 

As if it would console him, she said, “I will only be away for five weeks.”

“But you returned only twelve days ago,” he protested.

“Twelve days too many.” She turned a corner, past the royal suites and into the courtyard. There was her captain, waiting beside her luggage and a wagon. “Gannon, how are you?”

Adrielle went to greet the captain, her husband long forgotten. After asking for her permission, Gannon swept her up in a long hug. Adrielle laughed, more at peace than she had been in over a week. 

The king looked on, the heartbreak in his eyes poorly disguised as simple displeasure. Good, let him feel every bit of pain she could possibly inflict upon him. Let him suffer in the name of her contempt as she had suffered in the name of his pride. A subtle dart of satisfaction struck her as she stole a glance at him. He appeared borderline gaunt. How foolish she had been a few days ago to care if he had slept, if he had eaten. None of it mattered to her.

“Are you ready to leave, Your Grace?” asked the captain.

She climbed onto her seat. “Always.”

Adrielle had chosen a plain covered wagon to travel in, which never failed to disturb the king, who insisted that a queen deserved at least a carriage. She had no desire to be a queen. She wanted to be a stranger in her own lands, nothing more than an ordinary woman.

The captain waited until they passed the city gates to speak. “You ought to stop.”

She stretched out on the seat. “Stop what?”

“Torturing that boy,” he answered. “Oh, don’t give me that look. I’m serious.”

She raised her brows and gave him a leading smile. “So you consider the king to be a boy, Captain? You are barely five years his senior.”

“What I think has no bearing on the matter,” he said. “Your boy-king is miserable. Gods be good, he looks like he’s about to collapse at any given moment.”

“I suppose that is among the consequences of ruling poorly. Being miserable, I mean”

“He wouldn’t rule poorly if you helped him,” he pointed out. “How old were you when you knew you would marry him?”

She shot him a suspicious glance. “I was seventeen when his parents offered him to me. You know this, you were there.”

“No, Your Grace, how old were you when you knew you loved him? Entertain my little questions, if you would.”

“Ten,” she snapped. “I was a naive little girl. What of it?”

“And when did you ask Rhysian’s mother and father to teach take you under their tutelage?”

Oh. Adrielle knew _exactly_ what he was about to say. She considered refusing to answer him, the bastard captain. If she wanted to be nagged to death, she would have followed through with it. “Ten.”

“Why did you start?”

“You know why.”

“Then say it,” he persisted.

She loosed a long breath. “Because I knew he was unfit to be king. Are you satisfied? He is too soft, too trusting, and he cannot withstand any pressure whatsoever. So I sought out the expertise of his parents.”

“Right, you took on an incredible burden for the sake of your lover and your realm.” He gave her a worried look before continuing. “You abandoned him, which is fair—but you have also abandoned your responsibilities, which is not. They’re suffering, Your Grace. You spent years studying the affairs of the kingdom. You are better suited to the needs of the people than he will ever be. Stop wasting your time toying with him and make something of yourself.”

“You sound like my mother. Always urging me to coddle him.”

“Your mother has the best interests of the people at heart,” said the captain.

“Then perhaps my mother should be the one to lead them. Or…” She paused for effect, which never failed to annoy the captain. “Perhaps the king should learn how to rule.”

“You spend so much time travelling and dragging me alongside you. Have you no sympathy for your people? They are suffering in every corner of the realm under the new peace agreement. You aren’t blind to it, you’re far too smart to be.”

The captain rivalled a dog in loyalty. The perfect image of a duty-bound soldier, he devoted himself deeply to the realm and deeper still to his rulers. Yet, he rarely hesitated to speak against her. He was her friend first, and her glorified sentinel second. She largely preferred it this way, although now she found herself wishing he would observe the conventional behaviour of an inferior and close his damn mouth.

“They aren’t my people,” Adrielle stated blankly, her mood soured. “They have never been my people. They are the king’s, and I am only a commodity to him, someone who carries out his duties in his stead.”

Gannon sighed. “I promise you, he does not see you as a trophy to be won. That boy worships you. He adores you.”

“Lies and betrayal do not strike me as worship and adoration,” she retorted.

“He was eighteen, Adrielle, and still mourning his parents. He made mistakes, yes, but surely they aren’t unforgivable.” he finished his sentence in an upward lilt, as if he himself was unsure. “He loves you.”

She scoffed. “How unfortunate for the both of us, then.”

“Adrie,” said the captain. Adrielle frowned. Her husband’s nickname for her felt so wrong from the mouth of another man. “For my sake, stop punishing him. He looks like he is about to order my execution every time he sees me.”

“Now, that would be most fascinating,” she hummed. “I wonder how he would do it? Beheading? A knife through the ribs? Oh, what if he burns you alive in the square? The method is admittedly... archaic, but I would empty the royal coffers to see that tradition revived.”

Gannon rolled his eyes. “Gods be good, you are impossible.”

“Have you ever known me to be anything else?”

“No,” he admitted. “Never.”

The two of them continued on the central road for hours, exchanging insults in an effortless badinage. There was no one else she could speak with so openly, no one else she could trust so fully. If Adrielle could entirely monopolise Gannon’s time, she would leap at the chance to travel continuously with him, removed from the burden of being forced to return to the palace every few weeks. She could live out her long-abandoned of becoming an explorer, a nomad with no crown or husband to shackle her and no one but her best friend for company. 

As appealing as that idea was, the captain led a life of his own. She did not have the heart to tear him from it. Soon, he would be married. In the coming years, he would have a family to care for. This was among her final expeditions with him.

In her youth, she had longed for the gentle lull of the sea or the gritty winds of distant deserts or the thorny tangle of undergrowth in an untouched forest. Long ago, before she had met her husband, she had wanted to be an explorer. As the captain had pointed out, she had set aside her dreams to tend to the king’s. 

What a waste of her life, a waste of her sacrifices. Maybe the war had been some manner of twisted blessing—the defeat which had shackled her kingdom with nigh insurmountable debt had also struck her free from her chains.

They stopped in a clearing alongside the road. The first week of any given globetrot was always her least favourite. They were forced to follow the central road, which led to the seaports. The king had no qualms over sending his staff to follow her within the first seven days, knowing she would be on a ship en route to any corner of the world after that window of time.

Adrielle’s face twitched into a frown when a messenger charged into the little camp she and Gannon had fashioned. She stood, dinner forgotten over the fire. “You were sent by the king, I presume?”

The woman nodded. “It’s an emergency, Your Grace.” 

Of course. It was always an emergency. The king considered every minor inconvenience he experienced to be a crisis when she was leaving. She had half a mind to dismiss the messenger outright and be done with this.

“It’s the king, Your Grace, he’s hurt. He fainted, and…”

Oh.

 _Oh fuck_.

Gannon put a hand on her shoulder, a knowing look on her face. “Adrielle…”

Her stomach knotted in revulsion as her throat closed in horror. She had mounted her horse before the messenger was finished explaining. The staccato of her own heartbeat in her ears deadened every word from the woman’s mouth.

 _Oh fuck_.

Noon. They had left shortly after noon. She glanced at her watch as she raced down the central road, but her eyes were blurred by the jostling of her horse and tears. _Tears?_ Impossible. Impossible! She swiped at her eyes with the back of her knuckles and squinted again at the watch. Ten in the evening. Summer nights were short, and they had stopped when the sun disappeared into the horizon an hour ago.

They had travelled for eight hours, most likely—Adrielle counted it as nine to be generous. On their covered wagon loaded with luggage, their speed was slowed considerably. Maybe a third of the speed on horseback, considering they had been in no rush to reach the seaports. If she pushed herself and her horse, she could be at the gates of the palace in three hours.

 _Four_ , she decided. It would benefit nobody to unintentionally kill this animal.

Four hours, only four hours. She would be home before the summer sun rose. It would be okay. The doctors the king kept in his employ were more than capable. There was nothing she could do but arrive at his bedside and sit with him, anyway.

Despite all of her attempts at reasoning with herself, it seemed far too long for her.

After one hour, her legs were numb, but her thighs were cramping in protest. The rattling coin purse at her hip was undoubtedly causing bruises by now. The burning in her throat from thirst and panic was increasingly difficult to ignore. She paid her body no mind. There was not a single thought she could waste on herself.

What had happened? What the _hell_ had happened? Adrielle began regretting her total disregard for the messenger, who was surely miles behind her at this point. She had forfeited answers in order to rush home a few minutes sooner, and now she was left to wonder. She was left to drive herself to insanity and her horse to exhaustion.

Gods, he had looked so tired when she had last seen him. His eyes had been puffy and red with weariness, his lips cracked with dehydration like a field in a drought. She had pointed none of it out, of course, but nothing ever escaped her attention when it came to him.

When was the last time she had caught a glimpse of his body? There had been an incident several weeks ago. He had been panting her name from his bedchambers, softly at first, but overcome with panic within minutes. Adrielle had answered his calls, only to find him naked and _certainly_ not panicking. She had simply wrinkled her nose in disgust and left at the time, but now, she found herself fixated on her memory of his bare torso. His ribs had been showing, as if he ate no better than a vagrant on the streets. The king had been starving himself to the point that his skin clung to his bones like wet tissue paper to a window.

He had begged her to stay earlier in the day. He had _begged_ her to help him with the summer solstice gala. It had always been an overwhelming undertaking—even for her—and she had left him to manage it on his own. Her boy must have been beside himself with anxiety, unable to manage the scale of the task.

The skin of a dead woman tightened around Adrielle, constricting her neck like a python would a rodent. She struggled to breathe, suffocated by the fear of a woman gone, overcome by the worry of her younger self.

 _Go to him, go to him, go to him_ , urged a voice in her ears, the voice of the woman who loved the king. No, this was the voice of the woman who loved her _boy_ , her pampered little prince. She had not felt such panic for him since she had first heard of the death of his parents. He had only been a naive boy then, painfully innocent and untouched by the atrocities of the war around him.

Adrielle thought she had buried that woman along with the thirteen advisors she had personally bled and gutted in the square. That had been her last act as the queen: executing the traitors and then herself.

_Go to him, go to him, go to him!_

“I am,” she whispered, if only to herself.

After two hours, she arrived at a small city that fed into the capitol. She was halfway home, but unsure of whether to rejoice or despair. Her pace had slowed to a trot at best, her horse stumbling with fatigue.

“Adrielle!” Gannon shouted from behind her. “Gods, Adrielle, won’t you wait a moment?”

The captain had been struggling to keep pace with her for hours, but she had been unswayed by his pleas to slow, to rest and breathe for a few minutes.

She stopped at a stable and tack shop, pounding away at the door with the pommel of a dagger until a half-asleep man flung it open. The man groused about customers arriving so late in the night, long after he had closed his doors. Oh, why did all the travellers think they could march in here whenever they pleased? Oh, how outrageous of her to appear here so late! Adrielle showed him the family seals on her sleeves—the snake of her family’s and the bear of her husband’s—and thrust her coin purse into his hands and demanded his fastest horse. The man paled and stammered through his apologies, scrambling to obey her.

“Adrielle,” said Gannon as she waited for her horse, finally able to reconvene with her. “Calm down! You left so quickly that I had to ask the messenger to bring the wagon back so I could follow you.”

“The wagon is the least of my concerns,” she snapped. “Did you stay behind to talk to her? What did she say? What happened to him?”

“You would know if you hadn’t set off like a crazed harpy.” He took off his coat and eased his coat over her shoulders. “You’re shaking, Your Grace. It’s cold for a summer night, you’ll need this.”

“Thank you.” Adrielle slipped her arms into the sleeves, drawing his coat tight around her body. In her frenzy, she had not noticed the biting wind, which had seeped into her bones and made a home in her blood. “Now tell me.”

Gannon’s eyes softened. He pulled her close to his side and kissed her hair. “He was working when he fainted and cut his head open on a desk corner.”

She swallowed, throat constricting with tears. “Gods…”

“I know,” he murmured. “I know. I love him too.”

Her mouth curled into an uneven grimace, half disbelief and half outrage. “I don’t—”

“You do,” he said. “And so do I. We were best friends for ten years, Adrielle. I know you care about him just as much as I do.”

“He sent you off to the army out of jealousy. He acts as if he has never met you.” Despite herself, she let out a low sob. “You are more forgiving than I will ever be, Gannon.”

“Well…” He gave her a small grin and a pat on the shoulder. “I suppose you’re right, but his slights against you were significantly worse than anything he ever did to me.”

Adrielle mounted the new horse as soon as the man brought it out. She had paid at least three times what it was worth, not including the cost of the coin purse, but it was no great loss to her. Nothing was a great loss to her, so long as she returned home quickly.

Hours passed in a mindless haze as she rode through the night. The central road was well-travelled and well-kept. If she had been riding at this speed through a forest or even a flat field, her horse would have snapped an ankle on a root or in a hole by now. The road slowed her with no such hazards.

The droning _clop, clop, clop_ of the horse’s hooves distracted her from the numbness in her body, the heaviness in her mind. The distant palace loomed above her like a silhouette of a god. She rode faster, the rest of the capitol a blur behind her. The shadow of her home fell upon her. For the first time in a year, it brought her relief instead of dread. It had been so long since she had been happy to be here, she had almost forgotten the solace she had once found in it. Almost the entirety of her childhood had been spent within the walls of the palace. It was moreso her sanctuary than her father’s stronghold ever was, and she had allowed her hatred for her husband to destroy her love for this place.

Gods, what else had her hatred destroyed?

Adrielle rushed through the infirmary doors with Gannon at her heels. She ignored the exhausted tremors of her body and her heart, which had careened into an erratic tempo as she searched for her boy. She stumbled toward him, her eyes locked on a soft glint of yellow in the moonlight. His hair drew her forward like a beacon—as familiar to her as it had always been, though it had lost its lustre long ago. His once-rosy skin was an ashy tone, which only served to upset her more. She had once joked that his cheeks were full and pink like those of a babe’s. How had they come to this? Had he looked so horribly pallid when she saw him last? He looked no more a king than a waif plucked from the streets did, discounting his royal robes, which were exceedingly out of place both on his body and in the common infirmary.

A swath of bandages covered his forehead. Blood soaked through some spots in a pattern that almost reminded Adrielle of the freckles on his nose. She poked gently at the gauze, wondering just how hurt her boy was.

She fixed her eyes on the doctor. He was a different one than the woman who treated her husband’s hands six days ago. Had it really been less than a week since then? It seemed so long ago.

The doctor promised that he would return to perfect health within weeks, but the contrast between his words and her husband’s appearance was staggering.

Fury began to boil in her chest. Gannon crept forward slowly to place a hand on her shoulder as Adrielle spat out her questions, wary of her in this state.

Oh, it was nothing more than a combination of exhaustion and dehydration, the doctor told her. A hearty meal and rest would offset all of this. His Grace needed only to take anodynes for his pain and sedatives for his insomnia to recover. The gash on his head? Oh, it was only wide enough to warrant four stitches. And most of the wound was on his scalp, too! His face would be spared of unsightly scars. Wasn’t that such a great relief?

Adrielle fucking loathed this stranger’s voice. Each word that escaped his lips grated on her nerves like As if her boy’s beautiful face would ever be spoiled simply because of a scar. She sneered as she pocketed the medicines the doctor handed her. Gannon swallowed at her expression, leading the man away before she lost her patience with him.

Adrielle brushed her fingers over his cheeks. Suddenly, she found herself missing the blue-grey glimmer of his eyes, though they had lost their brilliance as of late. As dull and absent of life as he had become, he had no place here, among so many of those who were below him. A king had no place laying in an unkempt cot, surrounded by ill or injured servants. She positioned her hands underneath him and gathered him in her arms. He was so light against her chest, almost weightless in her numb arms.

“Woah, Your Grace,” cautioned Gannon as she held the king, swaying slightly before she found balance. He held out his hands to her. “Please, allow me. Where do you want to bring him?”

“He despises you. I will never hear the end of his whinging if he wakes while you are holding him.” She steadied herself and started toward the infirmary door. The product of years of training, Adrielle was strong for a woman of her stature, but she found herself trembling.

Gannon followed her into the corridor, clenching and unclenching his fists as if he was preparing himself to catch them if need be. “You’re spent. You’re weaker than you normally are.”

“I am still stronger than you,” she shot back, only half convinced of it herself. “How many times have you sparred against me and won?”

“I could win right now,” he said. “Did you even stop to drink in the past few hours?”

Her boy shifted nominally to nuzzle his face into her chest, and she nearly dropped him, heart leaping in anticipation that he would wake. He let out a content sigh, seemingly still asleep. Even unconscious and wounded, her boy searched for her touch. Adrielle set aside her warring heart and soaked in his heat. It soothed the aching in her muscles and the chill in her bones.

Gannon followed her into the south wing, reminding her with each step she took that he ought to be the one carrying the king. He stopped before he entered the royal quarters. She beckoned him in with a nod of her head. No matter how many times she told the captain that he was welcome to roam the palace as he pleased, he always waited for her permission. He was a dutiful man, easily too dutiful at times.

“Is this his bedroom?” The captain peered into Adrielle’s chambers. She shook her head. “Then why are his things in here?”

“Pardon me?” She passed Gannon, peering into the room. Surely enough, her bed was littered with her husband’s clothes. “What…?”

A guard she had not noticed earlier cleared her throat. “Your Grace, the king sleeps in your room when you are away.”

Adrielle looked down at her boy, quietly dismissing everyone but Gannon. Carefully, she placed her husband on her bed, rolling her shoulders and rubbing her neck after she billowed a blanket over him. The soreness she had been ignoring flared up in her body, as if it had been waiting until her boy was safely out of her arms, as if pain knew anything of courtesy.

“He sleeps here when I am gone,” she said slowly. “Why?”

The captain pulled a chair forward and nudged her until she sat. “Why does a lonely dog sleep in the bed of its master?”

She huffed, acutely aware of the dryness in her throat. “A dog. If only he _was_ a dog. Animals are possessed of an instinct to survive, and he is not.”

“Clearly not,” Gannon agreed. “He starved himself until he fainted. Gods, Adrielle—”

“Do not launch into another tirade about my responsibilities to him and to the realm,” she warned. “I have no more patience for it.”

“I wasn’t intending to.” He held up his hands in a show of surrender. “I was about to say, you yourself look ill.”

“I am only road-weary. Nothing to be worried about,” she said. “Bring me a pitcher of water and two glasses, then you are dismissed. Ask the first guard you see to find you a room for the night.”

“Right away, Your Grace.” He slipped out of her bedchambers with a quick bow.

Adrielle let out a sigh, letting her face fall into her hands and blinking back a fresh bout of tears. She was still trembling, as if each of her nerves had been individually plucked out of her body and burned before being shoved back under her skin in no particular order. She considered ripping open a packet of the anodyne the doctor had given her for the king and emptying it into her mouth.

Gannon returned with water, along with a small loaf of bread. He placed the pitcher on the nightstand and handed her the bread. “I stole this from the kitchens. I’m sorry I don’t have more, I didn’t want to alert the chefs. The last time I did, one of them threw a cutting board at me.”

Adrielle sank her teeth into the crust and hummed her approval. The bread was light enough to melt on her tongue. She finished it in a few bites only then realising how famished she had been. “Thank you. Go now, rest while you’re able. Morning is only hours away.”

The door clicked shut softly behind the captain, and Adrielle turned her attention back to her boy. She carded her fingers through his hair, taking care to avoid his wound. He grumbled happily, shifting to lean into her touch. He was so warm under her palm—so vividly alive now that she had returned, even while asleep. When she pulled her arm back, he let out a quiet whimper and swiped at the empty air to find her.

He was asleep; she could show him softness without concern for the consequences, she reasoned with herself. Taking his hand after she downed a glass of water, Adrielle kissed each of his knuckles and admired his beautifully dainty fingers. A renewed surge of heat stirred in her chest. 

“I was so afraid when the messenger told me you were hurt. I was so _angry_ with myself for leaving you.” She ran her thumb over the back of his hand in slow, gentle circles. “But you aren’t deserving of my fear and worry, Rhysian. That angers me most. No matter how much I hate you, I return when you need me.”

Compared to the sweeping expanse of her bed, the king looked no larger than a boy—a terribly frail and terribly young boy, with his unjustly beautiful face set in an expression that cried _innocence_. Her boy.

An uneven breath escaped her.

“You really are a child, aren't you? You must be cared for, you must be shown affection, you must be protected, otherwise you make a ruin of everything around you. But I am no longer here to mother you, don’t you understand?”

The irony of her own words struck her bluntly. No matter what she claimed, she very much _was_ here to mother him.

“If only I could forgive you,” she said at last. “No, if only you could have listened to me. Now look at what has become of us. A ruin.”

Tears sprang to her eyes, and she clamped her hands over her mouth.

Adrielle despised this man. She did. She _did_.

He had betrayed her. He had crippled the kingdom his parents spent a lifetime building, the kingdom which they had trusted with her, the kingdom which she had sacrificed her aspirations of freedom and adventure for. She was well within reason to be angry, to be blinded by fury. How could anyone possibly expect otherwise of her?

Adrielle despised this man. She… did not. She _could_ not.

She had protected him. She had carried the burden of a kingdom for him. She had been motivated by her attachment to him for the entirety of her life! How could it possibly be reasonable that more than a decade of affection could disappear over one mistake? How could anyone justify her behavior?

Her rent heart throbbed in her throat and threatened to suffocate her. The surviving scraps of it demanded that she leave him and demanded that she love him. She wanted to see him shatter, as she wanted to see him prosper. This was her darling boy, the man she loathed. This was—

Adrielle was not often a woman to deign to pleading, but she pleaded with her mind for silence. When it finally came, she stared at him until her eyes blurred with tears she refused to shed.

Clocks had always annoyed her. She could hardly bear their incessant ticking. Before she abandoned the throne, she woke every morning before the sun rose and retired long after night had fallen. There was never a need for one in her bedchambers, but now, she was left to wonder how much time had passed. Beams of sunlight began to filter into the room through half-drawn curtains. Her body was stiff after hours on the road immediately offset by hours entirely unmoving. Adrielle was close to collapsing herself.

A low whine came from her boy. She interlaced their fingers again and squeezed lightly, all thoughts of her own body disappearing as his eyes opened slowly.

He blinked away his weariness and kissed her knuckles as soon as he realised who was sitting at his bedside. He squeezed her hand and looked up at her. “Adrie…”

Swallowing a relieved sob, she swept the hair from his face and smiled. _Gods, I was so worried. I was about to go mad. I would have slaughtered every person in this godsforsaken palace if something happened to you. I would have razed this city to the ground._

Adrielle flinched at her own thoughts, caught alarmed by violence again taking root in her mind.

“Good morning,” she said instead.

“Why are you here, my love? I thought you left.” He winced, suddenly aware of the gash in his scalp. Probing it gently, he asked, “What happened?”

“You fainted and cut yourself on a corner of your desk when you fell. A messenger found me last night and I rode back right away.”

Her boy shot forward and flug his arms around her. “You came home! You came home for me. I have never known you to do that.”

“Well, I have never known you to collapse and split your head open.” Adrielle shook him off of her and sat him up against the headboard. “Move slowly. Your body is weak. Here, have something to drink.”

He accepted the glass of water she offered him obediently, finishing it in long gulps. “Gods, Adrie, I’m so happy you’re here.” He extended his arms to her. “Touch me?”

 _Touch me_. His requests had always been so humble, as if simply patting him on the head was enough to satisfy him—but she knew his nature. She knew that if she gave him a thread to tug on it would not be long before he had unravelled her. There would be no end to his whining if she did not approach this carefully. Her boy was so deceptively docile, as if he could be happy with whatever she was willing to give him. Oh, so long as she was acknowledging his presence, he would be perfectly content! 

She found it ridiculous that once she had allowed him to take and to take and to take from her until she had nothing to give but dust. That was what drove her to travel for such long stretches of time; the most straightforward way to deprive an undeserving man was to avoid him.

“Please?”

What a weak woman she was, to find herself so compelled by his well-meaning eyes. Adrielle was no better than the dead woman who had given all of herself to ensure his happiness and ultimately destroyed herself for it. Adrielle ran her fingers through his hair and watched a grin bloom across his face. His was a beautiful smile, and when she looked upon it, she could almost be convinced to forget the soreness in her muscles and the resentment in her heart.

“I was so worried for you,” she admitted quietly.

“There is nothing to worry over, my love,” he promised.

“You are clearly not,” she said. “I have never seen you so thin and so pale. Have you looked in a mirror as of late, Your Grace?”

He let out a nervous chuckle. “Adrie…”

“When did you last eat?”

His smile fell. “Please, don’t be angry with me.” She tightened her grip on his curls and he relented in recognition of her threat. “Two days ago.”

“Two days? You have gone _two_ _days_ without eating? Why haven’t your staff fed you by force, godsdamnit?” She loosed a forceful breath between clenched teeth. “I assume you have not slept regularly?”

Her boy winced, defenceless against her disapproval in any form. “… No.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, leaning back in her chair. “How do you expect to rule a kingdom if you are unable to manage your own needs?”

“I forget sometimes. I’m sorry.”

Biting back an unsavory comment, she poured him a glass of water and handed it to him, standing when he took it. Gods help her, she needed a moment to properly breathe.

His attentive eyes tracked her as she made for the door. “Wait, where are you going?”

She turned, drawing Gannon’s coat closer to herself. It was an uncharacteristically cold summer morning. Perhaps another storm was approaching. “Would you like anything specific for breakfast, Your Grace?”

He frowned. “But I don’t have an appetite.”

“I asked you what you wanted to eat, not whether you were willing to eat it.” Giving him a warning glance, she opened the door. “You will accept whatever I bring you, then.”

Adrielle returned an hour later with two servants, one balancing a heaping plate of food, the other carrying wine for her and water for her husband. By that time, he had fallen asleep again. Aside from the egregious tangle that was his hair, he looked almost kingly. He was so beautiful when he slept that she imagined the gods of olde could not compare to him.

She dismissed the servants and went to wake him, tapping him on the shoulder. His grey eyes opened, staring up at her with so much affection that she could not decide between being flattered or revolted. Wordlessly, she guided him to sit up, placing pillows against the headboard to support his neck and back.

“It’s quite early to be drinking, my love,” he said as she poured herself a glass of wine. “Aren’t you hungry?”

She spun a fork between her thumb and forefinger and speared a slice of potato with it. Like a good little king, he ate without objection when she held it up to his lips.

“I was gone for nearly an hour. I ate in the kitchens,” she replied. “And besides, I’ll sooner die of the stress you cause me than of liver failure, considering your utter inability to take care of yourself.”

He made a sound, something between a laugh and a sigh.

Between sips of wine, she fed her boy by hand. He grimaced after each bite, but knew better to voice his complaints. When his plate was empty, Adrielle dug a paper packet from her pocket and tore it open, shaking the power inside into a glass of water. She stirred it with a spoon and handed it to him. “Drink.”

He took the glass, regarding the cloudy water with suspicion. “What is this?”

“Poison. You are long overdue for an assassination attempt,” she said flatly. “It’s an anodyne the doctor gave me last night, for your wound. He told me to administer it after you had eaten.”

Gulping the medicine down, he winced and muttered about its bitter taste. “Wait…” Her husband eyed her closely. “Is that the captain’s coat?”

She folded her arms over her chest and crossed her legs, the agreeable mood she had found herself in souring. “Yes. What of it?”

“So you wear his clothes now?” His lips twisted in disdain. “What else have you been doing?”

“I do not take kindly to implications,” hissed Adrielle. “The night was cold and the captain was a gentleman. Do you take issue with that, my king?”

He flinched at her tone, recognising the warning within it. “I… I meant no offense, Adrie. I only wanted to say that… you ought to wear my coats instead. They suit you well.” He took a breath, summoning the strength to reach for her and clasp her hand.

She wrenched it out of his grasp and gestured to his clothes, strewn about her bedroom. “I suppose I can, considering you were kind enough to convert my chambers into your wardrobe. A guard told me that you sleep here when I am away.”

His face flushed red and he scratched the back of his neck, staring at everything in the room but her. “I’m lonely when you’re gone and your bed smells like, well… like _you_. I’m sorry. I wanted to ask for your permission, but I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Your Grace, do you have separation anxiety?” Adrielle bit the inside of her mouth to keep herself from laughing aloud. “My gods, you really are a child.”

He looked down at his lap, searching for some way to save face. “I wouldn’t ascribe separation anxiety to this, but…”

She raised her brows. “But?”

“But you’ve only recently started travelling without me and— and _existing_ separately from me. I am… unaccustomed to it. I am unsure that I ever will be.” He glanced up at her, only to find himself unable to hold her unforgiving gaze. “I find no enjoyment in being apart from you. You know that just as well as I do.”

“Unbelievable. You really are hopeless, aren’t you?” Adrielle wanted a dose of the anodyne for herself, if it could allay the headache blooming behind her temples. “Jealous, needy, entirely incapable of caring for yourself. Consider it a miracle that the court has yet to replace you with some distant relative on account of incompetence.”

“I shouldn’t have brought up the captain,” he said after a pause.

Adrielle creased her brows. “How in the name of the gods is Gannon incidental to this?”

He swept his hand across the room, waving loosely to her and to the empty plate on his nightstand. “You were being kind to me. You were doting on me. You came home for me. Gods, Adrie, you were _talking_ to me. That’s all I ever really want, and I spoiled all of it by being possessive.”

“Possessive, Your Grace? Do you consider me an object to be owned?”

“No!” he cried, more forcefully than either of them expected. He swallowed, repeating himself softly, as if not to offend her. “No, I could never think that of you. Why are you so insistent on vilifying me?”

“Have you not already vilified yourself, Your Grace?”

Adrielle felt her resolve waver as he blinked away the beginnings of tears. Demands to comfort him stirred in the pits of her chest like beasts of legend emerging from centuries dormant. Her monsters were like all others, only able to be subdued for so long.

At last, he found the courage to look at her. His “Please, Adrie, I don’t want to argue right now. Won’t you just hold me? I promise to be good.”

“No.” She tossed a silk handkerchief from the captain’s coat in his direction. “I want you to start caring for yourself. Show me that you aren’t a child, Your Grace.”

“I will,” promised the king, wiping the cloth over his cheeks. “I give you my word, I will. I’m sorry for having frightened you. That wasn’t my intention.”

“Your intention means nothing to me; and your word, next to nothing.” Adrielle slipped out of the captain’s coat, hanging it on the back of her chair. She drained the last of her wine and looked back at him. “Let me propose an agreement. _Never_ imply anything about Gannon again, and I’ll stay.”

“You’ll stay?” he echoed.

“I’ve grown road-weary, and, considering you are a fragile little child who is liable to collapse at any moment, I ought to be near you. And you—” She set her glass down on the nightstand with more force than she intended, causing him to flinch. “—will thank me by keeping quiet about the captain and looking after yourself. Do you accept, Your Grace?”

“Yes!” he exclaimed. “Yes, of course I do.” He threw the covers aside and flung himself into her chest. The chair screeched back with his momentum, causing them both to wince. Adrielle was surprised by the ferocity of his touch, the feverish warmth of it. Slowly, she returned his hug. He sighed and melted against her. “Thank you,” he whispered into her hair. “Thank you for coming home and thank you for staying.”

“You’re welcome, so long as you uphold the terms you agreed to,” she said. 

He nodded. “Right. No Gannon and no starving myself.”

“Good. And enough of your refusal to sleep,” she added. “Stand up.”

The king obeyed quickly, as eager to please her as he had always been. Unclasping his heavy mantle, Adrielle guided him back onto the bed and motioned for him to sit. The doctors had not bothered to exchange his royal robes for nightclothes, and she had been too preoccupied by worry to notice until now. She set the outer layers of his robes aside.

“What are you doing?” he asked, fingers gripping the bedspread.

She unfastened the brass buttons on his surcoat and untucked the expensive underclothes beneath. “What does it look like? Undressing you.”

He eyed her with suspicion fitting of a starved alley cat. “Why?”

“Because no one in this palace had the _incredible_ acuity to relieve you of your royal regalia,” she said dryly. “You need more rest, and I doubt your robes are comfortable to sleep in. Were you expecting something else?”

“No, no, nothing,” he answered. “But I just woke, my love. I’m rested enough.”

She eased off his pants and surcoat, leaving him wearing nothing but his underclothes.

He whined to her back as she left his side to draw the curtains shut. Oh, he had so much to do! Oh, he needed to organise the summer solstice gala, remember? And he didn’t know how to! He couldn’t waste his time in bed with the biggest event of the year approaching!

Adrielle wrested the heavy curtains together and turned to face him, grinding her teeth.

He recognised the warning on her face and scrambled to lay down. “I’ll sleep, Adrie. I’m sorry.”

“I ought to leave, then,” she said as she drew the quilts around his body. “I would hate to keep you awake.”

“Will you…” He peered at her over the covers, which he had tugged up to his nose. The apprehension on his face was appropriate for someone who was about to ask her to dissolve the council and replace the advisors with sewer rats, or something equally as ludicrous. “Will you stay with me? You didn’t sleep last night. You must be exhausted.”

Adrielle raised her brows, ignoring the aches in her muscles and the chill in her bones and the heaviness in her eyelids. She was as exhausted as determined as she was not to show it. “You want me to sleep with you?”

“Yes, please.” He frowned at the disgust on her face. “I missed you.”

“I was only gone for the better part of a day,” she said.

“And I missed you all the same. Come here?”

She pinched the bridge of her nose, watching his face fall. Damn him, and damn her rent heart—finally in agreement with itself at the worst time possible. “Fine.”

Her husband opened his arms to her, throwing the blankets back and patting the spot beside him, inviting her into her own fucking bed. She let out a long breath, stripping to her underclothes. He stared at her, bordering on sobbing or salivating. For the sake of her sanity, she hoped he did neither.

As soon as she lay down, her husband placed his head on her chest and grinned, more content as she had seen him in months. Always guarded in her presence, rarely did the king touch her without her permission. He must have been incredibly woozy to so blatantly overstep his bounds. For once, there was no resentment within her that she could draw upon and spin into a cord of all-consuming rage to strangle him with. Of their own accord, her arms wrapped around his back, which only made him happier. She stroked his hair, fingers brushing his bandages. 

He purred at her warm, placing a kiss between her collarbones. “Who will rule if the both of us sleep through the day?”

“The council,” she answered, unable to keep the bitterness from her voice.

“They aren’t what they used to be, Adrie,” he said, as if that could mollify her. “Considering that all of the former members are dead.”

She dug her hairs into his scalp and clenched her jaw, ignoring his soft, pained gasp in response. “I hope so.”

“Don’t be angry with me anymore,” he whispered. “So much has changed. I’ve made every effort to please you. Join me, please. The court is as vicious as ever, of course, but you enjoy humbling the lords and ladies, do you not? Organise the summer solstice gala with me.”

“Why would I do that? I never enjoyed nor wanted the throne. Every responsibility I assumed was entirely for your benefit.”

“I know that, and I know I am undeserving of your time.” He shifted to press his lips to her neck. Despite the judgement of her better self, she kept herself from throwing him off of her. Courage growing, he kissed her cheek and adopted a smile so charming that she could hardly remember to breathe. “So, what would you like in return for your help? I would like to make another agreement, please.”

“There is nothing you can office me that will convince me to protect you politically,” she forced herself to say. “You must learn to defend yourself, Your Grace.”

“Then teach me.” He furrowed his brow and pursed his lips, staring up at her like a perfect little prince. If she had been any stronger, she would have struck that horridly effective pout from his face with the back of her hand. “Please.”

“Why would I do that?” she repeated softly, fearing he would be able to hear how difficult so much as existing had become for her now that he was so terribly close.

“Because…” He drew the word out, thinking. “Because you—”

He shut his mouth abruptly, face flushing red.

“Because I… ?”

He winced, as if anticipating her reaction. “You’ll be angry with me if I say it.”

“As if the threat of my anger has ever stopped you in the past,” she retorted. Like sea sand, the words felt gritty and bitter on her tongue; and in equal measure, they felt natural. “Go on, let us hear it.”

“Because… you love me.”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

Adrielle bit into her cheek to stop a rough guffaw from escaping her throat. The taste of blood erupted in her mouth, on her tongue, between her teeth. She shoved him aside, her stomach cramping with the force of her laughter, as if her body hoped to expel all memory of an accusation as revolting as _that._

“You are the most intolerable idiot I have met.” She curled her fingers into her palms, imagining that it was her heart bursting under her nails instead of her skin. Her foolish, foolish heart, which could never be convinced to abandon her boy, regardless of her determination to. “Gods, why the hell would you think something like that?”

“Because I’m right.” The king sat up and grabbed her shoulder, his desperation overpowering his fear of upsetting her by touching her. “I love you, Adrie. I know you. You are never this upset, not unless someone has said what you don’t want to hear.”

“If you knew me and if you loved me, would you have _lied_ to me?” snarled Adrielle. “Would you have run the realm into defeat after your mother and father died for the war? If they had known that you would make such a mockery of their lives, they wouldn’t have made sacrifices so great for you.”

He recoiled, drawing back his hand at the mention of his parents as if her body was made of burning coals. Fuck. Some decent and untouched part of her responded just as viscerally to what she had said. How utterly, _disgustingly_ tactless of her to weaponise the death of his parents against him. They had taught him all that they had known, and when she had outgrown their expertise, they had called upon scholars and sages to further her education. Adrielle had been closer to them than with her own mother and father, but even she 

Her first instinct was to apologise, but he had turned away from her, laying on his side with a pillow clutched to his chest. At the sight of him, gritting his teeth against humiliated tears and staring blankly at the wall, an overwhelming regret began to overtake her.

He glanced back at her when she had steadied her breathing. Eyes never leaving a distant point in the brocade wallpaper, he spoke softly. “Forgive me, I was— Fuck, Adrie, I was wrong to say you loved me, but must we make an argument out of this?”

Given his hesitation to admit he was wrong, he likely believed the exact opposite. How could he possibly still think he was right after she had said something so awful about his family— _her family_ —in the haze of her anger? Each time she said something unforgivable to him, he set aside his hurt and forgave her anyway. Like a loyal dog, he limped back to her each time she kicked him aside.

“I’m sorry. Gods, I am so sorry.” The words came tumbling from her mouth like water over a collapsed bridge. “Your Grace…”

“My love.” At each wavering word, he was more wounded and more defeated. “None of what you said was wrong. There is nothing to forgive. So please, won’t you just hold me?”

“Of course,” responded Adrielle. In a practice motion, she pulled him toward her until his back met her chest. “Of course, Your Grace.”

“I wish you wouldn’t call me that,” he murmured. “Anything but that. It’s so… distant.”

“Are we not distant?”

“I wish that we weren’t,” he answered. “I wish this was different, Adrie.”

“I know.”

Her husband sighed. “I really do love you.”

“I know,” she repeated.

The silence that followed threatened to suffocate them both. As close as they were, she had never felt so removed from him. It had been easy to ignore the ache in the pit of her stomach when they were separated by rooms and walls and corridors—and at times, entire kingdoms. Now, with the man she was _married_ to curled in her arms like a helpless child, it was so terribly difficult to avoid confronting the truth.

Adrielle had missed him, and she had missed this closeless. Of course, her family sent letters every few weeks from their stronghold in the east, and her friends in the court approached her sporadically, and Gannon kept her company every time he could, but it was far from enough to repulse the loneliness that gnawed at the edges of her mind like termites on old floorboards.

“I’ll teach you.”

“Teach me what?” asked her boy.

“How to rule. How to keep the court in line, how to choose the right advisors, how to manage the other monarchs.”

He began to tense, as if preparing to flee. “Why? Guilt, my love? What you said about my parents wasn’t wrong. They would be ashamed of me if they were alive.”

 _Ashamed_. At that moment, Adrielle was certain that they would be ashamed of her as well. She had been their surrogate daughter, the perfect match for their hier, the prodigy who they poised to take the throne. Did they imagine that this would be what became of her? No, how could they have? How could anyone have predicted she would be anything but the perfect queen?

 _Let it be shame, then._ “What difference does it make? An offer is an offer.”

Letting out a long breath, he nodded and relaxed his body. “There is nothing I would want more, Adrie. A mercy, I mean.”

Tightening her arms around him, she murmured, “Good. Let it be mercy.”


End file.
